Gilberdyke Primary
Curriculum

Intent: Geography

The Geography curriculum at Gilberdyke will inspire curious learners who develop a keen interest in the world and its people, for life. It will promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments through the disciplinary knowledge concepts of geography which are: Human & Physical Location Place Teaching will develop pupils’ knowledge of their location in the world, globally significant places, the earth’s key physical and human features and the processes that create them. Pupils will also learn the vocabulary needed to describe and explain these. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. The use of maps, globes, diagrams, aerial photographs and other relevant resources will be embedded in each unit that is taught, with opportunities for pupils to interpret the information presented by each. Over their time at Gilberdyke, pupils will experience a range of fieldwork opportunities in our surrounding local area and further afield, including the East Yorkshire coast. They will use these fieldwork experiences to ask and answer geographical questions and collect data using a range of techniques and instruments. Pupils will analyse this data to deepen their understanding of geographical processes and communicate the information in a variety of ways.

Geography is taught every term from foundation stage to year 6 and the long-term sequence is arranged into a two-year cycle for each phase, rather than year group, due to mixed age classes. In EYFS and Key Stage One, the curriculum content is structured for each year of the cycle with a ‘near to far’ approach, in order to develop understanding first of the place they are most familiar with, their local area. For example, pupils will study the human geography of their village and city in the autumn term, incorporating field work in Gilberdyke and Hull, before a spring term study which focusses on the UK, broadening their knowledge and understanding of place, scale and size which then leads into a world-wide study comparing the UK with Africa, drawing on their knowledge of physical geography both locally and across the UK. The geography curriculum begins in the Foundation Stage where children begin to develop a sense of place and acquire a wide range of geographical vocabulary. Through the area of learning; Understanding the World, children will be encouraged to make sense of their physical world and their community. In Key Stage 1 – The curriculum focusses predominantly on the 3 big concepts of Place, Space and Scale, with the introduction of Physical and Human Processes and Cultural Awareness and Diversity. · In Key Stage 2 – The curriculum builds on knowledge of the big concepts covered and is about moving out to new challenges drawing on the wider local, regional, national and overseas experiences as well as environmental impact and sustainability. Pupils draw on their substantive knowledge from prior learning to make connections between places, focussing on interdependence. The curriculum is designed for children to remember the key content from lessons by either revisiting concepts and knowledge in future units of work or building skilfully on prior learning. Use of fieldwork outside of the classroom is regularly addressed to immerse children in the key content of their learning, to encourage children to think and act like geographers. Resources are carefully chosen to exemplify key geographical concepts and provide a rounded picture of a place. Map reading skills are carefully sequenced across the school from EYFS to year 6. Progression of skills includes interpreting a range of maps, developing spatial thinking and increasing their understanding of how places are connected.

Assessment opportunities are carefully chosen to fuse both substantive and disciplinary knowledge in order to develop children’s geographical understanding of the big geographical concepts. Impact Outcomes in geography evidence a broad and balanced curriculum which covers the big concepts of this subject and demonstrates pupils’ abilities to recall substantive geographical knowledge and think and act like geographers.